Jamie's Italian Covent Garden

Time Out says

4 out of 5 stars

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Users say
(11)

4 out of 5 stars

Time Out says

4 out of 5 stars

Jamie Oliver has got everything right at his chain of mid-priced restaurants designed to compete with the likes of Carluccio’s, Giraffe and Strada. It certainly leaves those last two in the shade. At our latest visit to the Covent Garden branch, someone knocked a nearly full bottle of red wine off a neighbour’s table and the staff couldn’t have been nicer about it. They supplied colouring sheets, crayons and retro View-Masters (with picture menus) to the kids, and didn’t get flustered when we changed our order three times.

What’s really a very large space is divided artfully by a central bar, bread station, welcome point and meat bar (featuring cured meats hanging from the ceiling). There’s also a second basement floor and an unusually large number of alfresco tables front and back.

We chose small portions of pasta so that we could try the enticing antipasti too, but you can also order pasta dishes in main-course sizes; in addition, there’s a choice of fish or meat dishes, such as steaks, fish stew and whole roasted sea bass. Prawn linguine and a spring vegetable pasta dish were both full of flavour. Crispy polenta chips sprinkled with rosemary, sea salt and parmesan, and a courgette flower stuffed with four cheeses offered interesting tastes and textures. The children wolfed down their burger and spaghetti bolognese too. No wonder the place is packed.

Disappointing to say the least. My family and I came here after many talks about Jamie's rustic approach to food! We expected raw and flavoursome dishes. What we got was a very underwhelming mediocre meal. My pasta was undercooked and I love aldente but this was beyond the pale.

Dessert looked promising but delivered nothing .. The whole rustic vibe of the restaurant is an excuse to hide the dirty chairs and much needed renovation. Nope sorry Jamie not a fan .

The best times are seldom planned and this
was certainly the case with Jamie’s. We popped in as it wasn’t too busy (just
past the lunchtime rush) and decided on a healthy snack, mainly focused on
salmon and green stuff. It was delicious! Just the right balance of flavours and enough
to refuel for some more weekend London exploring.

The restaurant itself was nicely laid out with
appealing decor conducive to a comfortable experience. They were rather slow on
the service though. Even with a couple of gentle reminders the food took a long
time to arrive, and they were fairly simple dishes to prepare. Other than that,
in the words of the man himself, it was proper pukka.

Tip: Go at less popular times to guarantee a table
if you’re not booking and try to be patient with the delay as the food is worth the wait

I've been missing out!! Having walked past this place many times, not really considering it to be on my lunchtime hit list of places to visit, then almost by accident ending up there with a friend. What a pleasant surprise. The food is modestly priced, of a very high standard, delicious and in a relaxed, café-like atmosphere. The service was sharp, the staff were charming and helpful. Definitely worth a visit. The lunchtime deal of 2 or 3 courses is great value considering the quality of the food.

I'm usually not a fan of this type of restaurant chain and much rather search for a family business or a smaller place (and London has loads to offer) BUT I'm not going to lie that I'm a massive fan of this restaurant.

Love the starters, I'm a fan of the risotto and I've tried several dishes and none has disappointed me.

There was already a half hour wait when we arrived so we had drinks and nibbles at the bar whilst waiting for a free table (which was just as well as the man who gave us the special buzzing light up your table is ready device forgot to press return so our wait for our table was longer than it should have been). We shared Italian nachos which were fried ravioli with a spicy tomato sauce and the fried stuffed green olives (they were stuffed with spicy pork and served with an arrabbiata sauce). For my main course I had a small portion of the gnocchi genovese which was served with fresh pesto, green beans and crushed purple potatoes. I also had a primavera side salad which was tasty.

I'm a bit of a snob when it comes to chains which is kind of silly because it's only a chain because it was successful enough in it's original location. Anyway, at Jamie's I can kind of kid myself that I'm going to an independent restaurant because the decor is pretty pukka and the service is really personalised. The food isn't quite the same as what the man would cook himself, but it's good enough for a pre-theatre nibble. I took my mum two years ago and she still swears by the lasagne, which is no longer on the menu, so Jamie get your act together!

Four of us ate at Jamie's Italian last night - what a disappointment! My white wine was warm so I asked for a cold glass, only to have another brought at the same temperature so I gave up. The crispy squid was simply oily squid and the main was little better. At £50/head there are many very much better choices in Covent Garden.

Loved it! Went on a Wednesday evening. Had to wait approx 25mins. You leave your name, and they give you a pager when your table is ready-cool. So we had time for a beer outside. It was busy, but the service was v good. I had fried squid to start-v yummy! The squid ink pasta-superb, but a bit short on seafood in it. 1litre carafe of house red was fine for us. Everyone else thought it was a good experience. Nice one Jamie :-)

disappointing. not the greatest tastes and not the greatest food....just average and less (Pasta with Rabbit - the meat was really non tasty...like badly cooked chicken)
lots of hype, full of people, really nice staff, good atmosphere....but food average and below